Chinese Chang'e-3 Lunar Rover On Its Way After Successful Launch

savuporo writes "The Chang'e-3 lunar probe, which includes the Yutu or Jade Rabbit buggy, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 1:30 a.m. (12.30 p.m. EDT). Landing is expected on December 14, at a landing site called Sinus Iridium (the Bay of Rainbows), a relic of a huge crater 258 km in diameter. Coverage of the launch was carried live on CCTV, with youtube copies available."

Comments

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[savuporo]

are playing catch up in the space race, they are catching up pretty quickly.

Chang'e-3 is not playing catch up - its doing many things that "west" has never done. First, only two space agencies have sent probes to land on lunar surfacce before. US never sent a teleoperated rover. Russians did, but 40 years ago with much older set of instruments.

It also carries multiple scientific instruments that have never been used on the lunar surface before ( obviously, because it has been 37 years since anyone bothered to go there ) . Namely, it has a radar underneath it that is intended to scan deep under the surface - this has never been done before. Second, it carries a telescope, which will for the first ever telescope landed on another planetary body.

See here for details : http://www.spaceflight101.com/change-3.html

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[savuporo]

That won't happen until the Chinese do something we haven't done before,

"West" has never sent a teleoperated rover to the moon. Russians did, 40 years ago.